by Anne Hagan
She started to protest but I raised a hand to stop her.
“I want to do this.” I took out fifty dollars, nearly all I had in cash, and moved to hand it to her. “You use this money tonight on a nice evening out with Jamie or you take your friend out with it.” I gently took hold of her right hand and pressed the money into it.
“Thank you,” she replied with a slight smile.
###
Mel
5:52 PM, Saturday, October 14th
Morelville, Ohio
“I don’t know what you’re making but it smells so good, I could smell it out in the driveway,” I told Dana as I trooped into the house, finally at the end of the longest week in my life.
The table was set with the good china someone had given us as a wedding present that we’d never taken out of the box and there were candles waiting to be lit. Dana was barefoot but back in the blue dress she’d worn what seemed like ages ago for the dinner that never was at Adornetto’s.
“These are for you. Best I could do so late in the day. I’m sorry baby.” A little embarrassed, I offered up the bouquet of red and pink carnations I’d been able to come up with in my last minute attempt to do something romantic for her.
“Don’t you be sorry. I love them and I love that you got them for me.” She stood on her toes and bussed my lips with a kiss. “Go get out of that uniform and into something comfortable but don’t take too long. Dinner’s ready.”
“Everything’s all wrapped up,” I told Dana as we ate. “All of the main players are now in holding somewhere and will be there until at least Monday before they’re arraigned.”
“So no more work for you this weekend?”
“No more work for me and, I don’t want to talk about work anymore this weekend but we do need to talk about your future; writing or security and investigations? Both? What do you need to get set up if you decide to go into business for yourself after all?”
Dana put up a hand to stop the thoughts spilling from me. “Babe, there’ll be time for lots of talk about all of that later. I don’t really want to talk about work right now either.”
“Okay. I love you, you know.”
She smiled brightly. “I love you too.”
When we were nearly finished, I asked in my best hopeful sounding voice, “Is there dessert?”
“Of course there’s dessert,” she said. “Why don’t you take our wine, go into the family room and lay in a fire? I’ll just do a quick clean-up out here while dessert warms up just a little and I’ll be in.”
“Deal!” I got up, picked up our glasses and the wine bottle and sauntered off to the family room to make fire. Boo, who’d sat patiently waiting for any sort of scrap from the table at all, started to follow me but, when she realized her mama was staying in the kitchen, she did an energetic about face and went right back in there.
After I got the fire going, I contemplated setting us up comfortably on the floor but I knew Boo wouldn’t let us relax as long as we had food and there was, after all, dessert to think about. I poured us each a little more wine and set them on the end table by the couch instead and then took a poker to my little blaze to adjust things just a bit.
The terrier bolted into the room and over to me. I turned to see Dana standing just inside the doorway with two plates of the best looking little cakes I’d ever seen on a plate. She hand one to me when she reached me and then we took seats.
I marveled at what I had in my hand. “This looks too good to eat. Is it red velvet?”
“Well if you don’t eat it, I will!” she said as she nodded in answer to my question.
I quickly cut into it with my fork. The liquid center oozed out. The taste was beyond amazing. “Babe,” I started, “this is unreal. How did you make these?”
“It wasn’t hard but, I admit, I had a little help. It was actually Hannah’s idea. She came down and we made them together.”
“Well, my compliments to both chefs.”
Boo cooperated and let us have a little peace once we moved to snuggle on the floor after dessert. She went to her own pillow closer to the flames.
Dana got down carefully in her dress. As I lay down beside her, I took a deep breath and relaxed into her.
The fire was hot and so was my wife. The combination was working to finally melt my stress away. I just held her for several long minutes and tried to blank my mind of anything but her. I stretched as she kneaded a shoulder and the base of my neck with strong fingers. I rubbed her lower back in return but soon was lost in the taste of her lips as she caught mine with a kiss.
We spent several long minutes kissing, lost in each other until I felt her shiver against me.
“Cold? The fire’s died down a lot.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Sure you will...in the bedroom where I can get you out of that beautiful dress and get you all warmed up in other ways.” I raised an eyebrow at her.
We took our little celebration to our room. For good measure, I moved Boo’s bed she rarely used, outside the bedroom door. I didn’t want her crawling in with us just yet...
###
Dana
I slipped my arms around Mel at the same time that she was reaching for me and we embraced. The warmth of her skin on mine, our breasts pressed together...I felt like this was where I had always belonged. We kissed again.
With my eyes closed I opened my mouth and felt Mel's tongue flicker against my lower lip. I opened my mouth wider inviting her in. Her mouth and tongue were so very soft and it felt like she was massaging the inside of my mouth as she began to tentatively explore. I softly stroked her tongue with my own. Our kiss deepened as our tongues continued to tease and caress and soon her hands were running up and down my back. She cupped both cheeks of my ass and pulled me in tighter. I moaned.
She pulled out of our kiss and took her time as she licked the length of me making me shudder and a moan. Back moments later for another kiss, she pulled out another groan from me. She didn’t linger long with her kiss this time. Instead, soon her tongue was swirling inside me, licking deeply. Her tongue worked hard, tasting my depths, providing delicious pleasure.
"Oh god, it's so good," I moaned. "So good."
Mel didn’t stop. Instead, she stepped up her game. Her hands found my ass again and grabbed it, lifting it, exposing even more of me to her mouth. She began tonguing me deeper, more insistently, not relenting for a second. A hand snaked up to caress my breasts. She made eye contact with me and grinned when she got to see the effect she was having on me.
When she had me groaning even more loudly and often than before, she removed her tongue from my folds and clamped her lips around the hard bud of my clit. She licked, sucked and kissed it insistently.
“Yes," I exclaimed as I felt the jolting electricity of her tongue and teeth.
Just when I thought I couldn’t take any more, her fingers found my opening and she began stroking me gently. Trying to urge her to quicken the pace, I bucked harder.
Completely in tune, Mel quickened the pace of her thrusts and her oral efforts and I bucked even harder in pleasure. She hung on.
It was torture as she varied the pace, giving me stretches of intense fucking followed by slower thrusts. I wasn’t content to take that passively and I met her slower thrusts with harder bucks.
"Come on, fuck me," I urged her. She finally complied. She took the nub of my clit between her lips and applied gentle sucking pressure as her fingers fucked me deeply.
"Come on," she said back to me. “Cum for me baby, cum for me."
I came. Hard. I could feel myself coating her hand as I rode my orgasm all the way through. I gripped her tight to me then shuddered in pleasure and shock as she replaced her fingers with her tongue as my orgasm coursed through me and kept me bucking.
Finally spent, I lay back, chest heaving. Mel reclined beside me as she rubbed a hand lazily over my stomach.
I turned to face her and caught her eye. “Don’t get too comfortable over there
,” I told her. “You’re next.”
A long time later, as I drifted off to sleep, I felt Mel stirring behind me. She had an arm slung possessively over my side; her soft breasts pressed against my back. She exhaled and I could feel her warm breath against my neck. She mumbled something, nuzzled closer to me, and became still again.
Epilogue
Mel
Some time, well after midnight, Boo started barking from somewhere else in the house. I sat up and tried to look around in the darkness. At my movement, Dana woke up.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice rasping from sleep.
“I left Boo outside the door when we came to bed. She’s kicking up a fuss in the kitchen, it sounds like.”
I got out of bed and, thinking there might be someone or something outside that had her riled, I quickly threw on sweats and a t-shirt.
It wasn’t until I got half way to the kitchen, and Boo charged to meet up with me, that I heard a knock on the door. As I drew closer, I heard a female voice say, “I don’t think they’re here.” Then it was quiet.
Boo was right at my feet as I reached for the deadbolt. Just as a clicked it backwards, a wail cracked through the stillness of the night beyond the door. A baby began to cry.
I yanked the door open but looked over my shoulder first when I heard a noise beyond the entry arch into the kitchen. Dana was up too.
Turning back, I realized it was Hannah Yoder on our doorstep with her girlfriend Jamie right behind her. In my shock to see them there at such a late hour, I almost forgot to let them in until Dana asked who it was.
“Hannah and Jamie,” I said and, as I looked beyond them, “and another woman with a baby.”
“Are you going to let them in? It’s cold.”
I opened the screen and stepped aside, motioning for them to enter.
“Hannah, what’s wrong?” Dana asked her.
“I’m so sorry for waking you but we didn’t know where else to go and I knew Mel would know what to do.”
“What’s going on?” I asked her.
“This is Katie, a friend of ours.” Hannah nodded toward the third young woman. “She’s in trouble and her and her baby have no place else that’s safe to go.”
Hannah’s Hope
A Morelville Mystery Thriller
(Book 8)
Anne Hagan
To Tracy and Kathy, my biggest fans
PUBLISHED BY:
Jug Run Press, USA
Copyright © 2016
https://annehaganauthor.com/
All rights reserved: No part of this publication may be replicated, redistributed or given away in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without prior written consent of the author or the publisher except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages for review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are actual places used in an entirely fictitious manner and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, organizations, or persons, living or deceased, is entirely coincidental.
Chapter 1 – Lady with a Baby
Mel
Well After Midnight, Sunday, February 15th
Morelville, Ohio
Some time, well after midnight, Boo started barking from somewhere else in the house. I sat up and tried to look around in the darkness. At my movement, Dana woke up too.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice rasping from sleep.
“I left Boo outside the door when we came to bed. She’s kicking up a fuss in the kitchen, it sounds like.”
I got out of bed and, thinking there might be someone or something outside that had her riled, I quickly threw on sweats and a t-shirt.
It wasn’t until I got half way to the kitchen, and Boo, our Boston Terrier, charged to meet up with me, that I heard a knock on the door. As I drew closer, I heard a female voice say, “I don’t think they’re here.” Then it was quiet.
Boo was right at my feet as I reached for the deadbolt. Just as I clicked it backwards, a wail cracked through the stillness of the night beyond the door. A baby began to cry.
I yanked the door open but looked over my shoulder rather than outside when I heard a noise beyond the entry arch into the kitchen. Dana had gotten up too and was shuffling toward me.
Turning back, I realized it was Hannah Yoder on our doorstep with her girlfriend Jamie right behind her. In my shock to see them there at such a late hour, I thought nothing about letting them in until Dana asked who it was.
“Hannah and Jamie,” I said and, as I looked past them, “and another woman with a baby.”
“Let them in Mel; it’s cold.”
I opened the screen and stepped aside, motioning for them to enter.
“Hannah, what’s wrong?” Dana asked her.
“I’m so sorry for waking you but we didn’t know where else to go and I knew Mel would know what to do.”
“What’s going on?” I asked her.
“This is Katie; a friend of ours.” Hannah nodded toward the third young woman. “She’s in trouble and her and her baby have no place else that’s safe to go.”
We finally got Katie and her infant son bedded down in the guest room upstairs sometime after 2:00 AM. Since we only had one guest room set up, and I wouldn’t let Hannah and Jamie drive all the way back to Zanesville so late on such a bitter cold night, we got them settled in the family room – the room Dana called my cave.
Now, we lay huddled together in our own bed, whispering since our downstairs bedroom was situated so close to my evening retreat and the two young women.
“What a crazy week it’s been, huh?”
I felt Dana shake her head slightly from where it was nestled against my shoulder. “You aren’t kidding. What next?”
Even though she was speaking softly, I could hear the frustration in her tone. I dipped my head down and kissed her forehead. She looked up at me then and, at such close range, though it was dark, I could see her slight smile.
“What are we going to do about Katie and her son, babe?” We knew precious little about them other than that it didn’t seem to be safe for them to stay in Zanesville. Explanations didn’t come spilling out of any of the girls at such a late hour.
“We’ll just have to sit down and talk with all three of them in the morning about what’s going on and go from there. I mean, until we know her story, I don’t know what else we can do.”
“True.” I tried to stifle a yawn but I failed miserably.
Dana bused my lips and then rolled over to assume the spooning position by tucking herself against me. Once she was settled she told me, “We should get some sleep...looks like tomorrows’ going to be another long day.”
That was the last thing I remembered from that night.
Chapter 2 – The Whole Story?
Sunday morning, February 15th
Hannah was in the kitchen whipping up a breakfast feast when I dragged myself out of bed at the late, late hour of 7:00 AM. Katie was sitting at the table with her infant child, whose name I now realized I didn’t even know, giving him a bottle.
“Jamie’s in the bathroom,” Hannah told me. “If you need in there I can tell her to hurry.”
“No, no. She’s fine. Dana and I have a bathroom in our room. I guess you’ve never really seen the whole house, have you?”
She shook her head no as she flipped a pancake. Boo sat at her feet, staring up at the stove; her attention never wavering. “I’ve been all over your parents’ farm house and this seems to be laid out the same but they don’t have a bathroom in their room.”
“This is the same floorplan but the previous owners remolded it; lucky us.”
Catching Boo’s attention, I asked her, “Outside?” and pointed toward the door. She looked away from me, right back at the stove.
Hannah laughed. “I let her out before I started all of this. It’s still really cold; she didn�
�t waste any time.”
Moving over to the table, I smiled down at the baby and took a seat adjacent to Katie. “I forgot to ask last night; what’s his name?”
She smiled, “Jef.”
“Just Jeff? Not short for Jeffery or Jefferson?”
“It’s spelled J-e-f. It’s a Dutch name that means ‘God Raises’.”
“Oh.” I’d thought I detected a bit of the Amish accent in her English but, given that she didn’t say much the night before and that she’d been dressed much as Hannah and Jamie were, I couldn’t be sure.
“That’s pretty; I mean in a handsome sort of way,” Dana said as she wandered into the kitchen. Boo hazarded a look in her direction but that was all. The possibility of dropped people food took precedence over even acknowledging her mama.
Dana stepped over to the stove and inspected Hannah’s work. As she stole a piece of bacon from under a tinfoil tent, she told our young friend, “I can see that every minute you’ve spent in culinary school has been well worth it.”
“This?” Hannah waved a spatula over the cooktop, “I’ve been making this stuff all my life, just about.”
Katie spoke up, “Girls in the Order learn young; as soon as they can reach the stove.”
Hannah chuckled again like she had over Boo but continued to watch the griddle. “Coffee’s ready and everything else will be just a couple more minutes.”
“You didn’t have to do all of this, you know,” Dana told her, “but I’m so glad you did. Mel’s Sunday morning cooking is okay, but...” She trailed off.
“Hey! I’m a good cook.” Everyone laughed at my indignant tone. “I am!” I favored them all with a little head waggle. “Besides, I haven’t heard any complaints out of you.” I waved a finger toward my wife but my tone was lighter. I figured she was teasing me.
“You’re good at barbecuing and grilling. Breakfast, not so much.”
Okay, so maybe she’s not teasing, I thought. “You can just starve on Sunday mornings from now on, then.”